Eleusinian Mysteries
by piscespen
Summary: Drugged and alone, an amnesiac Donna finds herself the unwilling guest of honour at a mysterious alien ceremony.


It's hot inside the lodge, the air heavy and thick with pungent mist. Beads of sweat stand out against her naked skin, plastering her hair to her forehead and neck. Tiny rivulets of sweat trickle uncomfortably between her dusky milk filled breasts and down her extremely pregnant belly, straining uncomfortably at the rough waistband of her snug linen trousers.

She looks down, her belly filled to the brim with baby. Blinking moisture from her eyes, she runs her swollen hand along it, her belly button visibly protruding beneath her fingertips.

The baby stretches sleepily inside her womb. It's a little boy. She can see him when she closes her eyes, head down and hugging himself in sleep, his little hands hovering near his face.

"Does he have a name?" she asks, her words slurring plaintively as she caresses her belly with clammy trembling hands. "Do you know what his name is?"

She sways unsteadily on her feet, her back aching as the willowy blue-skinned attendant places a wreath of dried flowers on her head. She shudders, a sudden chill running through her despite the cloying heat, her lack of memory before waking in this place less disturbing than her baby's lack of identity.

Tears sting her eyes as the silent blue girl covers her naked torso with a gauzy ceremonial robe that she fastens with an ornate broach just below her swollen breasts. Watery colostrum soaks through the gossamer fabric, her wide belly round and protruding between the open sides.

Her attendant calls something incomprehensible over her shoulder and two burly blue-skinned men appear in the painted doorway. All three are bald, including the girl, and naked from the waist up, clad in nothing but simple linen trousers. She stumbles slightly as they strong-arm her towards the exit, her eyelids heavy and blinking sluggishly in the curling mist.

Her head lolls backwards on her neck when they hit the hot dry air outside, a baking blue-white sun beating down on her damp head as a huge roar goes up from the blue-skinned revellers at her appearance. She stumbles, her legs growing increasingly rubbery as they drag her towards a stone altar, undulating blue bodies dancing in and out of her field of vision.

Her head spins in the cacophony of competing sights and sounds and odours. Curling wisps of smoky incense saturate the air with cloying sweetness that makes her stomach churn. She gags, vomiting the contents of her compressed stomach onto the dusty earth.

Another roar ripples through the crowd of gyrating natives, dancing in half-naked ecstasy around her. Their fanatic frenzy builds to a fever-pitch as if her sickness has somehow consecrated the fallow ground beneath their thundering feet.

She staggers, her knees going weak as they drag her towards the altar, beads of sweat stinging her eyes. A tall blue-skinned Shaman wearing a painted wooden mask twice as wide as his head is stood beside the altar, an obsidian knife in his hand.

The breath catches in her throat at the sight of him, the baby in her belly abruptly waking at the sudden rush of adrenaline in her blood. Her breath disintegrates into ragged gasps as she begins to hyperventilate in fear, her body bathed in sweat. The burly attendants push her towards the altar, her belly bulging with the baby's anxious kicks as the masked Shaman's cool hands take her arms in an oddly familiar grip.

She notes the dark hairs covering his blue arms, though the rest of the natives are completely hairless, lacking even eyelashes. He glances at her escort and murmurs something low and guttural in a language she doesn't understand. They take their leave, bowing deeply before joining the other revellers, dancing around a growing bonfire in oblivious ecstasy.

"Please don't," she whimpers, swaying in the Shaman's surprisingly strong grip, her head spinning from the heat and sensory overload, "don't harm my child."

His dark brown eyes flicker briefly towards the gyrating villagers before returning to her face, his cool fingers spreading over her slick belly.

"Alexander," he murmurs in English, "his name's Alexander."

She shivers, the baby growing suddenly calmer at his touch.

"And yours is Donna," he continues, lifting her into his arms.

"Who…?" Donna asks, her head lolling senselessly against his shoulder. The feeling of his arms around her feels oddly familiar, sparking the ghost of a memory she can't quite hold on to.

"Later," he says softly, slowly backing away from the undulating villagers and ducking into the trees.

He pulls his mask off as they enter the dense forest, revealing a dark, disheveled head of hair framing a lean face with sharp, though not unattractive features. Pale blue dye covers his bare torso up to the neck, lean muscles playing beneath his skin.

Donna licks her lips, her clammy hand resting on his chest, unsurprised by the odd syncopated rhythm she finds beating beneath her fingertips. Her rheumy eyes fall on the discoloured puncture wound perforating his skin just below the collar bone.

"What happened to you?" she asks, her voice fading hoarsely.

"It's nothing," he says absently, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one is following them, "but it did keep me from getting to you sooner."

"I don't…" she slurs, her thoughts boiling away in the baking sun, "...my head hurts." Her heavy eyelids begin to close practically of their own accord.

"Stay with me Donna," he says anxiously, hurrying away from the raucous village down a wending forest path, dead leaves and pine needles crunching beneath his bare feet, "just keep talking."

"What… What were they planning to do with me?" she mumbles thickly, her eyelids opening to watery slits.

"Sacrifice you," he says flatly, "to their Earth Goddess or something or other."

"Why?" she asks, shivering lethargically in the midday heat, "I'm obviously not a virgin," as if reinforcing her argument, her belly bulges with sudden movement.

"That's sort of the point," he says, stiffening as something rushes through the dried leaves off to their left. Something vaguely raccoon-like scampers up a tree trunk and he relaxes slightly, shifting her weight in his arms before continuing down the path. "You're nearly due to give birth."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"There hasn't been a child born on this planet in a generation," he says, "an epidemic swept through the villages twenty years ago and sterilised the population."

"An epidemic," Donna says, her hoarse voice rising in pitch, "What like _Small Pox_?" she asks, her swollen fingers spreading anxiously over her vulnerable belly.

"There's no danger," he reassures her, "the illness burned itself out long ago, but it's made the natives desperate. Facing their own mortality has more or less pushed them over the edge. They've convinced themselves that they've been cursed by the Great Mother Goddess and the only way to lift it is to spill the blood of a fertile woman. Which reminds me," he says distastefully, plucking the glittering obsidian knife from the waistband of his linen trousers, "I liberated this from the real Shaman, best get rid of it before it falls into the wrong hands," he says, dropping it into the leaf strewn gully running alongside the dusty path.

"You didn't…" Donna says, swallowing queasily, "…kill him did you?"

"Who?"

"The _real _Shaman?"

"Of course not," he says, frowning at her as if wounded by the suggestion, "he was so beaked up on _Thief_ he barely noticed me. I suggested a little nap might do him some good and he was only too happy to oblige."

"Beaked up on…" Donna asks, blinking sluggishly, "...what?"

"_Thief, _it's an airborne drug, a sort of organic version of _Forget_, but much more powerful. It steals memories. The natives turn it into an incense that reduces anyone exposed to an almost mindless state of suggestibility."

"They…, drugged me?" Donna asks anxiously.

"I'm afraid so, yeah," he says, "to keep you complacent during the ceremony. The good news is once exposure to the drug is eliminated, it wears off fairly quickly. The bad news is you seem to have developed an adverse reaction to it."

"What an adverse reaction beyond not being able to remember anything you mean?" Donna asks, her lips dry and cracked as she runs her sandpaper tongue over them.

"Yeah," he says, tensely, "you're running a fairly high fever at the moment and you're also extremely bloated."

"Hasn't that got something to do with being pregnant?" she murmurs lethargically.

"Not like this," he says, frowning slightly, "I won't know if it's a reaction to the drug, or if there's something else going on until we get back to the TARDIS and I can check you over properly."

Again, the shadow of a memory flickers across her mind before fading into oblivion. "Is the baby in any danger?" she asks, her trembling fingers caressing her belly.

"He's naturally immune to most psychoactive drugs," he says, stopping suddenly to look back over his shoulder.

Donna's blurry eyes narrow slightly. Obviously this man's memories are intact despite being exposed to the same airborne drug as she. "He gets that from you," she says slowly.

"Yes."

"He _knows_ you," she says, the baby's acceptance mingling with her own growing sense of recognition and somehow making her feel safe despite the danger.

"Yes, well," he says softly, "he _has_ been listening to me prattle away for nearly nine-months now."

"I think…" she says, thoughtfully licking her lips, "I think I do as well."

"Yes, well," he says, one corner of his mouth turning up into a tiny half-smile, "_you've_ been listening to me prattle away for much longer."

"I can see him when I close my eyes," she says softly, watching the baby yawn sleepily in her mind's eye.

"He's telepathic," he says absently, veering from the path and heading into the thickest part of the rambling forest. Small furry things scamper out of his way as they quickly move across the fern covered floor.

"He gets _that_ from you as well," she says. It's not a question.

"Yes," he says simply.

"So, you and I are…"

"Yes," he says softly.

"Well," she says, the baby stretching against her flesh before curling up again in sleep, "sort of gives a whole new meaning to the term "mind-blowing sex" doesn't it."

His mouth quirks slightly at that. She shivers, her head pounding as his arms tighten around her and her eyes slide shut.

"Try to stay awake Donna," he says, tensely.

"I…," she says, swallowing queasily, "I used to know your name."

"You will again," he says, absently.

"You're…, a doctor."

"_The_ Doctor actually."

"Bit full of yourself aren't you," she teases softly, the corners of her cracked lips turning up slightly in amusement.

"See," the Doctor says wryly, "it's all starting to come back to you already isn't it."

Shouts of dismay follow them as the anaesthetised villagers finally register their absence. Not at all hampered by their drug induced haze they crash through the brush behind Donna and the Doctor in pursuit.

"Uh oh," the Doctor murmurs softly, picking up the pace. No longer interested in stealth, he crashes headlong through the brittle underbrush, threading his way around trees and shrubbery with snake-like precision. Donna closes her eyes, queasy with motion sickness.

"You're not lost are you?" she asks, gritting her teeth to keep from throwing up.

"Course I'm not lost," he huffs indignantly. He's not at all out of breath, though his twin hearts are beating out a furious counterpoint to the painful throbbing inside Donna's head. "I'm a Time-Lord. I don't do lost."

Donna squints up at him through half-opened eyes, shielding her face against his chest from the relentless heat of the blue-white sun.

"Trust me, I have a sixth-sense when it comes to these things," the Doctor goes on, muttering mostly to himself as he quickly threads his way through the underbrush, "I always know exactly where I am in relation to everything around me." He stops for a moment, Donna assumes to get his bearings. "Here's the thing though…"

"You're lost," Donna says flatly.

"A little bit, yeah," he admits, pulling a face as if he can't quite believe it himself.

"I _knew_ it," Donna groans.

"Well, it's hardly my fault," he snaps defensively, "obviously something is messing with my spatial sense." His brows knit in consternation as he turns in a seemingly random direction. "I thought something felt a bit off when I arrived."

"And you didn't think to leave some sort of trail that you could follow back to the TARDIS?" Donna demands, the fog beginning to lift from her thoughts. Memories like puzzle pieces begin to refill the empty corners of her mind.

"No Donna," the Doctor says tartly. "It didn't occur to me. Forgive me, but I was a bit preoccupied with saving you from the crazy people with the giant knife."

The air directly in front of them shimmers with some sort of energy and suddenly a formidable looking blue-skinned warrior is stood directly in front of them.

"Oh right," the Doctor says mildly, "teleportation. That would explain it then."

He veers sharply to the right, plunging into the underbrush and taking off through the winding trees with the hairless warrior in close pursuit.

"Wait, what just… happened," Donna gasps, peering over the Doctor's shoulder at the large blue-skinned man's furious face. He's taller than the Doctor and larger, but the Doctor is faster, increasing the distance between them with each stride of his long legs.

"There are only two ways to teleport," the Doctor explains and Donna marvels a bit at his ability to divide his attention so perfectly between talking to her and evading their pursuers. "You either need a device capable of bending space, or you need to be born with the ability to do it yourself. Since this is a pre-industrial society, I can only assume that it's the latter and the ability to teleport is part of the genetic makeup of the population. An innate ability like that though, can only develop somewhere that doesn't quite conform to the natural laws of space/time."

Donna rolls her eyes slightly at his long-windedness, her head pounding. "So the planet's throwing off your internal GPS, is that it?" she murmurs hoarsely.

"In a nutshell," the Doctor says. "Teleportation would also explain how they were able to get you off _Shan Shen_ without a ship."

"_Shan Shen_?" Donna asks.

"It's a sort of Asian bazaar world, which we are never visiting again by the way since this is the second time you've been kidnapped in as many trips and no, I really don't care if they _do _have the cutest baby things," the Doctor says flatly.

Several more villagers appear in front of them, blocking their path. Unfazed, the Doctor plunges into the underbrush immediately to his right. Stiff dry branches whip past Donna's face as they pelt through the rustling foliage.

"So, we're just going to run around in circles until they what, lose interest?" she demands.

Several needle like darts that look as if they've been fashioned from the dried bones of some local animal whistle through the trees, embedding themselves with a rapid series of thunks in a vine covered trunk inches from the Doctor's head.

"Nope," he says, cringing slightly as more bone darts split the air around them, "you hear that?"

Donna raises an eyebrow at him, her aching head lolling against his chest.

"Water," he says simply, "we're nearing the coastline, which means…" he says, emerging from the rustling forest onto a white sandy beach sheltering a choppy violet ocean.

The TARDIS stands like a blue beacon 100 metres or so down the shore and he grins suddenly. "I was going the right way all along," he says smugly, "like I said, I have a sixth sense when it comes to these things." He ducks suddenly when a fleet of bone darts nearly takes his head off.

"A little _common_ sense would be more useful," Donna mutters, "get out of the open you prawn," she cries, "unless you like the idea of becoming a pin cushion that is."

"Been there, done that," the Doctor says, bobbing and weaving his way down the beach as Donna's eyes stray to the puncture wound on his chest again, "don't really fancy spending the next several hours trying to crawl out of my own skin again, thank you very much."

Several burly looking blue-skinned men appear in front of them suddenly, blocking their escape route to the TARDIS. Their raised arms are obscured by wooden weapons halfway between crossbows and rifles and are pointed directly at the Doctor's head.

They advance, their weapons silent for the moment, apparently unwilling to shoot the Doctor and risk hitting Donna. They must need her unscathed for the ceremony she guesses, nearly choking on the irony. She swallows, her arms tightening around the Doctor's neck.

"Wooden weapons of course," the Doctor mumbles sourly eyeing the crude weapons strapped to the villager's arms. Donna seems to recall that means the sonic will have no effect on them. "Oh well," he sighs, slipping it out of the rough pocket sewn into his crude trousers anyway, but instead of turning it on the advancing men, he aims it over their shoulders at the TARDIS.

Instantly she begins to dematerialise, the slack-jawed villagers momentarily taken aback by the grinding squeal of her engines as she seems to simultaneously disappear from her original location down the beach and reappear in her new location around the Doctor and Donna, sheltering them from the sudden hail of flying darts behind solidifying coral encrusted walls. Donna blinks, slightly disoriented when she finds herself suddenly inside the TARDIS console room, the villagers impotent shouts fading away as they slip back into the vortex.

"Don't worry," the Doctor says softly, "you're safe."

His lips briefly brush hers before he abruptly takes off again, whisking her from the console room down the corridor to the medical bay.

"Wait, that's it?" she demands. "We're just leaving? What if they try to kidnap some poor unsuspecting young mother out of _Tesco_ or something."

"They haven't the time," he says tensely, the sliding glass doors leading to the medical bay parting with a soft hiss of air as they approach. "They're highly superstitious remember? They were planning to sacrifice you at the exact moment of the Summer Solstice. They won't risk angering the Mother Goddess by performing the ceremony on another day. They'll have to wait another year for the planets to align again."

"So we're what, just going to ignore the threat because I'll have had the baby by then and it'll just be someone else's problem?"

The Doctor frowns slightly at that. He lays her down on a narrow, though surprisingly comfortable medical couch, his cool hand resting on the soft curve of her bare belly.

"Can't you help them?" Donna asks him, "Find a cure, or something?"

His expression doesn't change as he attaches two monitors that look like nothing more than transparent strips of plastic to her chest and belly. Slipping on his glasses, he squints at the monitor screen above the couch.

"They don't deserve it," he says flatly.

Donna raises herself up on her elbows, her aching head feeling as if it's full of sand. "No, they don't" she says softly, "but you'll do it anyway."

The Doctor's frown deepens, the laugh lines surrounding his dark eyes growing more pronounced. "what makes you think so," he says.

Donna takes his hand in hers and lays it on her belly. "When you thought your civilisation was going to die with you, how did it make _you_ feel?" she asks him softly.

He just looks at her for a moment, his expression unreadable. "I'll try," he says finally, unwrapping a small adhesive patch and applying it to her arm.

"What's that?" She asks.

"Just something for your head," he says, grabbing a chair and sitting down heavily beside her, "your fever is already starting to come down."

"Is the baby all right?" she asks.

He nods.

"Am I?"

He nods again, his lips quirking into the ghost of a smile. Donna closes her eyes in relief, the pounding in her head already beginning to recede to a dull ache. The baby opens his eyes and she smiles, watching him with her mind's eye as he yawns and stretches. Her fingers caress her belly as his little hands explore her flesh just below the bellybutton.

"Memories beginning to sort themselves?" the Doctor asks and Donna nods.

"Most of them," she says, her lips quirking wanly, "Spaceman."

She opens her eyes to find him smiling at her, his cool fingers joining hers as the baby kicks beneath them.

~END~


End file.
